Franchise Lead - Biopharmaceutical Business Unit at AstraZeneca

What you’ll do

• Based in Johannesburg, you will be instrumental in driving the success of our BioPharma Business Unit (BBU), focusing on therapeutic areas such as Cardio-Renal-Metabolic, Respiratory, and Immunology. You will shape and execute commercial strategies, inspire and develop your team, and build impactful collaborations with healthcare professionals, key opinion leaders, and payors. By developing an in-depth understanding of the regional disease landscape, patient pathways, and emerging treatment options, you will identify opportunities to enhance patient outcomes, promote innovative solutions, and support earlier and more equitable access to care. Your leadership will ensure that our scientific advances translate into real, meaningful improvements for patients, while fostering a culture of excellence, accountability, and customer-centricity throughout your team.
• The Franchise Lead - Biopharmaceutical Business Unit (Franchise Lead: BBU), South Africa role leads the Biopharma Business Unit for South Africa. This role directly leads the private market BBU sales & marketing teams in South Africa. The Franchise Lead: BBU will directly manage the SA, Sales and Marketing teams, including performance management, talent management and monitors sales and marketing team activities such as long-range planning, pricing, promotions, pro-actively identifying business opportunities, and driving recommendations to drive and develop business. The Franchise Lead: BBU is ultimately accountable for managing overall South Africa private market sales and marketing performance and for delivering P&L of the respective Brands/portfolio and the contributing results for the territory. The role further supports the SAR Countries on promotional, L&D and support on new launches.

Typical Accountabilities

• As a Franchise Lead: BBU, you will lead a dedicated team, blending your scientific knowledge with commercial drive to deliver innovative solutions that truly impact lives. If you are energized by building relationships, shaping strategy, and creating value for customers and patients alike, we want you to be part of our bold and supportive team as we push the boundaries of science together.

Lead business acceleration

• Drive the acceleration of AstraZeneca’s private market biopharma business growth across South Africa through identification and prioritisation of territories, accounts and partnerships with strategic value to AZ, e.g., hospitals, funders, etc. and liberate resources from lower priority accounts to invest in higher priority accounts
• Develops strategies based on an understanding of TA ecosystems, patient journeys, customer and payer need to lead and deliver success across the portfolio and maximise new growth opportunities
• Develop strategies and tactics to provide optimal resource allocation in alignment with the Biopharma TA and brand strategy, within the governmental and regulatory environment
• Work with the team to develop appropriate / challenging goals within each of the sales and marketing territories.
• Leads activities across key therapeutic areas, including the definition, design, execution and measurement of all sales and marketing strategies and tactics to deliver on the TA and brands’ objectives
• Transforms the business and organisation to fit the demands of the customers and patients to deliver on ways of working with Strategic Account Managers to become omnichannel and virtual champions

Deliver on plans and achieve sales goals on budget

• Ensure implementation of business plans and drive sales performance to meet or exceed expectations while managing operational budgets
• Drive cross-functional and cross-regional collaboration to fully leverage AZ's account management capabilities
• Proactively anticipate and address obstacles that may impede results, e.g., identifies and communicates insights related to products / stakeholders and informs relevant AZ teams e.g. product development, marketing, sales

Lead, coach and manage SA Sales and Marketing Team

• Leads and develops the sales and marketing teams including but not limited to performance management, talent management and career development, building and developing a high performing and dynamic team
• Develop and maintain productive working relationships with account teams in order to manage and motivate teams effectively
• Review team's and individuals' performance; coach & provide feedforward for achieving results, and recognise and encourage good performance
• Lead, coach and enable development of team members' skills and knowledge, e.g., plan training needs, coach individual team members as required.
• Manage team's and individuals' skills, knowledge, and performance; set short and long term measurable, clear goals and expectations and track progress against these
• Identify and tackle challenges and issues within the team / individual team members
• Consistently act as role model and clearly communicate and reinforce the importance of the AZ values in leading the team

Launch Readiness to Launch Excellence

• Strategic Vision and Alignment - sets a clear launch vision, aligns it with broader organizational goals, and ensures these priorities are embedded across all functions involved in the launch.
• Cross-Functional Leadership and Governance - lead the formation and ongoing management of cross-functional launch teams, establishing governance frameworks to drive accountability and timely decision-making.
• Resource Allocation and Risk Management - ensures optimal allocation of resources—people, budgets, technology—and proactively manages risks, swiftly addressing issues that could impact launch timelines or success.
• Stakeholder Engagement and External Representation - act as the senior face of the launch, engage with key external stakeholders (e.g., thought leaders, payers, patient groups) to build advocacy, address market access challenges, and shape perceptions.
• Performance Monitoring and Readiness Assessment - set and monitor high-level KPIs, use milestone tracking, and lead periodic readiness reviews to ensure the launch is on track and any gaps are identified early.
• Culture Building and Capability Development - foster a culture of excellence, continuous improvement, and agility, to ensure teams adopt launch best practices and build essential capabilities for current and future launches.
• Learning Capture and Post-Launch Optimization - ensures that lessons learned are systematically captured and rapidly integrated into processes for ongoing optimization and future launch success

Ensure compliance

• Successfully complete all training requirements, including product examinations, and ensure same of sales and marketing team
• Be compliant with all external regulations and internal policies – and also ensure broader AZ team is compliant and enforce compliance in the internal team
• Ensure understanding of the AZ Code of Conduct, External Interactions Policy and Standards, and Privacy Policy and regulations regarding interactions with Patients

If this sounds appealing, please read on to understand the experience and skills we’re looking for…

ESSENTIAL SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

• Completed Bachelor’s Degree in Health Sciences or related field
• Minimum of 5 to 10 years people leadership exp, within a multinational pharmaceutical company
• Must have Pharma Sales and/or Marketing experience of at least 5 years
• Experience leading cross functional teams executing against multi-disciplinary strategies (sales, marketing, medical, market access etc.)
• Evidence of increased scale & complexity of accountabilities throughout career path and gained broader experience over time
• Strategic thinking and customer orientation with an ability to network and influence stakeholders locally and globally
• Generates exceptional results by driving performance and collaborating across boundaries
• Innovates and develops an environment of continuous improvement
• Financial acumen – managing P&L for small to middle-size market origination
• Drive market access & marketing strategy - Translate insights of external ecosystem into actionable plans to optimise performance and reputation
• Build organisational capabilities - Deliver results by ensuring appropriate resources, structure and people capabilities are in place for now and future for the country
• Lead others to perform - Inspire commitment and followership, create the culture and conditions to lead others to perform
• Enterprise-focused decision making - Apply a deep understanding of the enterprise when making local decisions